The biological and social sciences often generalize causal conclusions from one context to others that may differ in some relevant respects, as is illustrated by inferences from animal models to ...
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The biological and social sciences often generalize causal conclusions from one context to others that may differ in some relevant respects, as is illustrated by inferences from animal models to humans or from a pilot study to a broader population. Inferences like these are known as extrapolations. How and when extrapolation can be legitimate is a fundamental question for the biological and social sciences that has not received the attention it deserves. This book argues that previous accounts of extrapolation are inadequate and proposes a better approach that is able to answer methodological critiques of extrapolation from animal models to humans.Less

Across the Boundaries : Extrapolation in Biology and Social Science

Daniel Steel

Published in print: 2007-10-01

The biological and social sciences often generalize causal conclusions from one context to others that may differ in some relevant respects, as is illustrated by inferences from animal models to humans or from a pilot study to a broader population. Inferences like these are known as extrapolations. How and when extrapolation can be legitimate is a fundamental question for the biological and social sciences that has not received the attention it deserves. This book argues that previous accounts of extrapolation are inadequate and proposes a better approach that is able to answer methodological critiques of extrapolation from animal models to humans.

In India, philosophers have not attempted to overcome the existing limitation between social theory and social philosophy. Surprisingly, many of them are not even aware of this as a philosophical ...
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In India, philosophers have not attempted to overcome the existing limitation between social theory and social philosophy. Surprisingly, many of them are not even aware of this as a philosophical issue. This explains why there is a social variance between India and the West. Like the West, Indian society is becoming modern, but modernity in India has to coexist with the pre-modern. This introduction examines the uniqueness of Rene Descartes's method and presents a different perspective on modernity. It considers the intermediate attempts to overcome solipsism into three major movements, each constituting a distinct stage in the movement of ideas. It also considers the views of Alasdair MacIntyre on modernity and tradition in the West.Less

Introduction : Theoretical Invariance and Social Variance

A. Raghuramaraju

Published in print: 2011-02-03

In India, philosophers have not attempted to overcome the existing limitation between social theory and social philosophy. Surprisingly, many of them are not even aware of this as a philosophical issue. This explains why there is a social variance between India and the West. Like the West, Indian society is becoming modern, but modernity in India has to coexist with the pre-modern. This introduction examines the uniqueness of Rene Descartes's method and presents a different perspective on modernity. It considers the intermediate attempts to overcome solipsism into three major movements, each constituting a distinct stage in the movement of ideas. It also considers the views of Alasdair MacIntyre on modernity and tradition in the West.

The slow inclusion of sociology in the older universities is a recurrent theme in studies attributing the failure of British sociology to institutional or organizational factors. Philip Abrams argued ...
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The slow inclusion of sociology in the older universities is a recurrent theme in studies attributing the failure of British sociology to institutional or organizational factors. Philip Abrams argued in this vein that British sociology was in no sense a success story because of its social and institutional setting rather than an effect of inadequate intellectual resources or a problem of theory or method. Abrams suggested that focus on reformist governmental policies had subverted independent sociological theory. These arguments about the reputed theoretical bankruptcy of British sociology are immediately relevant to idealism. At first glance, the connection between idealism and sociology may appear remote or even implausible. Although the late 19th century saw a move towards professionalization of disciplines and the gradual definition of distinct methodologies and languages, these inquiries still overlapped.Less

Sociology and Idealist Social Philosophy

Sandra M. Den Otter

Published in print: 1996-02-29

The slow inclusion of sociology in the older universities is a recurrent theme in studies attributing the failure of British sociology to institutional or organizational factors. Philip Abrams argued in this vein that British sociology was in no sense a success story because of its social and institutional setting rather than an effect of inadequate intellectual resources or a problem of theory or method. Abrams suggested that focus on reformist governmental policies had subverted independent sociological theory. These arguments about the reputed theoretical bankruptcy of British sociology are immediately relevant to idealism. At first glance, the connection between idealism and sociology may appear remote or even implausible. Although the late 19th century saw a move towards professionalization of disciplines and the gradual definition of distinct methodologies and languages, these inquiries still overlapped.

This book introduces a new theoretical entity: Agent_Zero. This software individual, or “agent,” is endowed with distinct emotional/affective, cognitive/deliberative, and social modules. Grounded in ...
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This book introduces a new theoretical entity: Agent_Zero. This software individual, or “agent,” is endowed with distinct emotional/affective, cognitive/deliberative, and social modules. Grounded in contemporary neuroscience, these internal components interact to generate observed, often far-from-rational, individual behavior. When multiple agents of this new type move and interact spatially, they collectively generate an astonishing range of dynamics spanning the fields of social conflict, psychology, public health, law, network science, and economics. The book weaves a computational tapestry with threads from Plato, David Hume, Charles Darwin, Ivan Pavlov, Adam Smith, Leo Tolstoy, Karl Marx, William James, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, among others. This transformative synthesis of social philosophy, cognitive neuroscience, and agent-based modeling will fascinate scholars and students of every stripe. Computer programs are provided in the book or available online. This book is a signal departure in what it includes (e.g., a new synthesis of neurally grounded internal modules), what it eschews (e.g., standard behavioral imitation), the phenomena it generates (from genocide to financial panic), and the modeling arsenal it offers the scientific community. For generative social science, this book presents a ground-breaking vision and the tools to realize it.Less

Joshua M. Epstein

Published in print: 2014-02-23

This book introduces a new theoretical entity: Agent_Zero. This software individual, or “agent,” is endowed with distinct emotional/affective, cognitive/deliberative, and social modules. Grounded in contemporary neuroscience, these internal components interact to generate observed, often far-from-rational, individual behavior. When multiple agents of this new type move and interact spatially, they collectively generate an astonishing range of dynamics spanning the fields of social conflict, psychology, public health, law, network science, and economics. The book weaves a computational tapestry with threads from Plato, David Hume, Charles Darwin, Ivan Pavlov, Adam Smith, Leo Tolstoy, Karl Marx, William James, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, among others. This transformative synthesis of social philosophy, cognitive neuroscience, and agent-based modeling will fascinate scholars and students of every stripe. Computer programs are provided in the book or available online. This book is a signal departure in what it includes (e.g., a new synthesis of neurally grounded internal modules), what it eschews (e.g., standard behavioral imitation), the phenomena it generates (from genocide to financial panic), and the modeling arsenal it offers the scientific community. For generative social science, this book presents a ground-breaking vision and the tools to realize it.

This chapter introduces the general methodological challenges that confront extrapolation in the biological and social sciences, and sketches the outlines of the mechanisms approach to those ...
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This chapter introduces the general methodological challenges that confront extrapolation in the biological and social sciences, and sketches the outlines of the mechanisms approach to those challenges that is developed in the rest of the book.Less

Extrapolation and Heterogeneity

Daniel P. Steel

Published in print: 2007-10-01

This chapter introduces the general methodological challenges that confront extrapolation in the biological and social sciences, and sketches the outlines of the mechanisms approach to those challenges that is developed in the rest of the book.

I have been selective in my emphases rather than encyclopaedic and exhaustive. In focusing on American philosophy, the book makes implicit claims about thought and life related to a peculiar western ...
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I have been selective in my emphases rather than encyclopaedic and exhaustive. In focusing on American philosophy, the book makes implicit claims about thought and life related to a peculiar western polity and the US, by the nineteenth century. The study of the history of philosophy finally requires complex judgements of quality, which are both questionable and necessary. I have depicted student–teacher relations, conventions of argument, and constellations of problems that endure over generations; and the cultural setting and institutional connections that make up an enterprise of philosophy. I have described traditions of thought and the intentions of thinkers within a social matrix. The book divides naturally into three substantive parts: the first covers the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth centuries, and focuses on religious disputation; the second, from 1865–1930 on pragmatism, an influential American contribution to western ideas; the third, from 1910–2000, on professional philosophy in America, more secular and institutionalized. The thinkers covered include Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Bushnell, Charles Peirce, Josiah Royce, William James, John Dewey, C.I. Lewis, Wilfrid Sellars, Thomas Kuhn, Richard Rorty. The most important theme of the book is the long circuitous march from a religious to a secular vision of the universe. A subsidiary theme concerns social and political philosophy, the crux of Ch. 2.Less

A History of Philosophy in America : 1720-2000

Bruce Kuklick

Published in print: 2003-01-09

I have been selective in my emphases rather than encyclopaedic and exhaustive. In focusing on American philosophy, the book makes implicit claims about thought and life related to a peculiar western polity and the US, by the nineteenth century. The study of the history of philosophy finally requires complex judgements of quality, which are both questionable and necessary. I have depicted student–teacher relations, conventions of argument, and constellations of problems that endure over generations; and the cultural setting and institutional connections that make up an enterprise of philosophy. I have described traditions of thought and the intentions of thinkers within a social matrix. The book divides naturally into three substantive parts: the first covers the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth centuries, and focuses on religious disputation; the second, from 1865–1930 on pragmatism, an influential American contribution to western ideas; the third, from 1910–2000, on professional philosophy in America, more secular and institutionalized. The thinkers covered include Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Bushnell, Charles Peirce, Josiah Royce, William James, John Dewey, C.I. Lewis, Wilfrid Sellars, Thomas Kuhn, Richard Rorty. The most important theme of the book is the long circuitous march from a religious to a secular vision of the universe. A subsidiary theme concerns social and political philosophy, the crux of Ch. 2.

To conclude, Beveridge played a significant part in moulding the institutions of modern Britain over the 19th and early 20th centuries. He combined in his own person the roles of social scientist and ...
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To conclude, Beveridge played a significant part in moulding the institutions of modern Britain over the 19th and early 20th centuries. He combined in his own person the roles of social scientist and practical reformer, journalist and popular moralist, politician and philanthropist. He can be simply described as a classic social reformer. Put in the most crudely simplified terms, Beveridge's vision of the ‘good society’ was a ‘republican’ rather than a ‘democratic’ vision. On this much grander issue, Beveridge remains after half a century a gigantic pyramid around whose lesser earthworks many pygmies crawl.Less

Conclusion : A Philosophy of Social Welfare

Jose Harris

Published in print: 1997-09-25

To conclude, Beveridge played a significant part in moulding the institutions of modern Britain over the 19th and early 20th centuries. He combined in his own person the roles of social scientist and practical reformer, journalist and popular moralist, politician and philanthropist. He can be simply described as a classic social reformer. Put in the most crudely simplified terms, Beveridge's vision of the ‘good society’ was a ‘republican’ rather than a ‘democratic’ vision. On this much grander issue, Beveridge remains after half a century a gigantic pyramid around whose lesser earthworks many pygmies crawl.

It takes exception to the claim that since his political theory addresses legislators and statesmen rather than citizens or subjects, Aristotle is therefore not concerned about the interests of ...
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It takes exception to the claim that since his political theory addresses legislators and statesmen rather than citizens or subjects, Aristotle is therefore not concerned about the interests of citizens and subjects and is thus unimpressed by the issue of political obligation. This chapter argues that once due consideration is given to Aristotle’s adoption of a practical viewpoint in his study of social reality, it is reasonable to conclude that the interests of citizens or free subjects are indeed a concern of his. It also explains that Aristotle’s political theory is not merely descriptive and/or explanatory but also basically normative. Special emphasis is given to the normative subtext of many of his descriptive and explanatory statements.Less

The Explanatory Power of Ethics in Aristotle's Theory of Politics and Law

Andres Rosler

Published in print: 2005-03-03

It takes exception to the claim that since his political theory addresses legislators and statesmen rather than citizens or subjects, Aristotle is therefore not concerned about the interests of citizens and subjects and is thus unimpressed by the issue of political obligation. This chapter argues that once due consideration is given to Aristotle’s adoption of a practical viewpoint in his study of social reality, it is reasonable to conclude that the interests of citizens or free subjects are indeed a concern of his. It also explains that Aristotle’s political theory is not merely descriptive and/or explanatory but also basically normative. Special emphasis is given to the normative subtext of many of his descriptive and explanatory statements.

The theory on how people evaluate valuable things in life as it is influenced by social conditions is explained in this book, which presents a revised text from the Tanner Lectures on Human Values ...
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The theory on how people evaluate valuable things in life as it is influenced by social conditions is explained in this book, which presents a revised text from the Tanner Lectures on Human Values delivered by the author in March 2001 at the University of California in Berkeley. Philosophers including Christine Korsgaard, Robert Pippin, and Bernard Williams contribute their commentaries on divergent approaches to moral and social philosophy issues. Raz expounds on the social dependence of value by focusing on pluralism, change, and understanding. He also takes critical responses from his commentators, one of which is from Korsgaard, challenging views based on Aristotle and Immanuel Kant, while Pippin scrutinises social dependence in its ironic form as Williams agrees with Pippin’s arguments. Reflecting on responses from Raz, this introduction examines the holistic method that Raz himself deploys in reaching his conclusion about social dependence.Less

Introduction

R. JAY WALLACE

Published in print: 2005-01-27

The theory on how people evaluate valuable things in life as it is influenced by social conditions is explained in this book, which presents a revised text from the Tanner Lectures on Human Values delivered by the author in March 2001 at the University of California in Berkeley. Philosophers including Christine Korsgaard, Robert Pippin, and Bernard Williams contribute their commentaries on divergent approaches to moral and social philosophy issues. Raz expounds on the social dependence of value by focusing on pluralism, change, and understanding. He also takes critical responses from his commentators, one of which is from Korsgaard, challenging views based on Aristotle and Immanuel Kant, while Pippin scrutinises social dependence in its ironic form as Williams agrees with Pippin’s arguments. Reflecting on responses from Raz, this introduction examines the holistic method that Raz himself deploys in reaching his conclusion about social dependence.

This chapter sketches a portrait of Alfred Krupp. It describes how Alfred Krupp perfectly fits the mold of the heroic entrepreneur. Profoundly skeptical of joint-stock companies, banks, and ...
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This chapter sketches a portrait of Alfred Krupp. It describes how Alfred Krupp perfectly fits the mold of the heroic entrepreneur. Profoundly skeptical of joint-stock companies, banks, and capitalism in general, but also of big-scale science and modern research methods, he was a genius at extending to its utmost limits the possibilities of the craft entrepreneur. He developed an extraordinarily successful business model that allowed the principles of the small workshop to be extended on a gigantic and global scale. Moreover, the chapter credits him with a social philosophy which eventually created a community of Kruppianer, workers bound to the enterprise and the community by pride in the product of their labor.Less

Steel : Alfred Krupp

Harold James

Published in print: 2012-02-26

This chapter sketches a portrait of Alfred Krupp. It describes how Alfred Krupp perfectly fits the mold of the heroic entrepreneur. Profoundly skeptical of joint-stock companies, banks, and capitalism in general, but also of big-scale science and modern research methods, he was a genius at extending to its utmost limits the possibilities of the craft entrepreneur. He developed an extraordinarily successful business model that allowed the principles of the small workshop to be extended on a gigantic and global scale. Moreover, the chapter credits him with a social philosophy which eventually created a community of Kruppianer, workers bound to the enterprise and the community by pride in the product of their labor.

This book explores the values of equality and diversity as promoted across liberal societies, drawing on various traditions of political and social philosophy, including liberal egalitarianism, ...
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This book explores the values of equality and diversity as promoted across liberal societies, drawing on various traditions of political and social philosophy, including liberal egalitarianism, existentialism and elements of post-modernism and post-structuralism. These philosophies are applied to policy and practice debates, especially concerning disability issues, but also relating to gender and multiculturalism.Less

Equality and diversity : Value incommensurability and the politics of recognition

Steven R. Smith

Published in print: 2011-07-20

This book explores the values of equality and diversity as promoted across liberal societies, drawing on various traditions of political and social philosophy, including liberal egalitarianism, existentialism and elements of post-modernism and post-structuralism. These philosophies are applied to policy and practice debates, especially concerning disability issues, but also relating to gender and multiculturalism.

During the Revolutionary and Constitutional period, politics dominated the intellectual elite in a way that almost excluded religious claims. After this time, social and political thought developed ...
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During the Revolutionary and Constitutional period, politics dominated the intellectual elite in a way that almost excluded religious claims. After this time, social and political thought developed in their own more practical, less philosophical tradition, oriented to the secular concerns of the Founding Fathers and following the interests of Benjamin Franklin. The tradition of philosophical theology, dominated by students of Jonathan Edwards only studied politics and society as a study derivative of its ideas about religious knowledge, and this tradition was eventually critical in American philosophy.Less

Philosophy and Politics

Bruce Kuklick

Published in print: 2003-01-09

During the Revolutionary and Constitutional period, politics dominated the intellectual elite in a way that almost excluded religious claims. After this time, social and political thought developed in their own more practical, less philosophical tradition, oriented to the secular concerns of the Founding Fathers and following the interests of Benjamin Franklin. The tradition of philosophical theology, dominated by students of Jonathan Edwards only studied politics and society as a study derivative of its ideas about religious knowledge, and this tradition was eventually critical in American philosophy.

This chapter reviews the analysis on Max Weber's work made by Gary Abraham who details the impact of Weber's social philosophy, and that regnant in liberal German circles, on Weber's methodological ...
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This chapter reviews the analysis on Max Weber's work made by Gary Abraham who details the impact of Weber's social philosophy, and that regnant in liberal German circles, on Weber's methodological categories generally and on his attitudes toward the place of Jews in Germany in particular. Abraham had an excellent guide to Weber's political and academic speeches and correspondence in Marianne Weber's Max Weber: A Biography (1975). Using this work, Abraham tracks Weber's associations with Rickert, Schmoller, Troeltsch, and Harnack.Less

History and the Social Sciences

Ezra Mendelsohn

Published in print: 1997-04-10

This chapter reviews the analysis on Max Weber's work made by Gary Abraham who details the impact of Weber's social philosophy, and that regnant in liberal German circles, on Weber's methodological categories generally and on his attitudes toward the place of Jews in Germany in particular. Abraham had an excellent guide to Weber's political and academic speeches and correspondence in Marianne Weber's Max Weber: A Biography (1975). Using this work, Abraham tracks Weber's associations with Rickert, Schmoller, Troeltsch, and Harnack.

This book studies Beveridge's life and deals fully with Beveridge's private life, character, and personal relationships. The central theme of this study is Beveridge's role in the shaping of the ...
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This book studies Beveridge's life and deals fully with Beveridge's private life, character, and personal relationships. The central theme of this study is Beveridge's role in the shaping of the 20th-century state and the unravelling of Beveridge's personal role in the history of specific developments in modern social policy. The book explores the tortuous history of Beveridge's personal and emotional life.Less

Introduction

Jose Harris

Published in print: 1997-09-25

This book studies Beveridge's life and deals fully with Beveridge's private life, character, and personal relationships. The central theme of this study is Beveridge's role in the shaping of the 20th-century state and the unravelling of Beveridge's personal role in the history of specific developments in modern social policy. The book explores the tortuous history of Beveridge's personal and emotional life.

This chapter examines the idea that laws in society limit the arbitrariness of a ruler if a social philosophy gains acceptance that sees the ruler as subject to the laws. Laws in nature limit the ...
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This chapter examines the idea that laws in society limit the arbitrariness of a ruler if a social philosophy gains acceptance that sees the ruler as subject to the laws. Laws in nature limit the arbitrariness of the gods, if the worldview seeing the gods as subject to the laws prevails. Both tendencies were noticed in ancient Chinese social theory and religion. Chinese religion was, with the emergence of the natural sciences, markedly depersonalized and ritualized in a way that secured harmony among the people, but did not promote the worship of deities. The attraction of Buddhism, introduced in the first century ad from India, clearly shows that the dominant worldview in China basically had nothing to offer that could come to meet the desire of many people for a god the father or god the mother. The idea of the regularity of nature may therefore have also complied with political interests in the Warring States period and later. The basic conditions for the emergence of medicine in China were thus fulfilled.Less

Why Here? Why Now?

Paul U. Unschuld

Published in print: 2009-09-08

This chapter examines the idea that laws in society limit the arbitrariness of a ruler if a social philosophy gains acceptance that sees the ruler as subject to the laws. Laws in nature limit the arbitrariness of the gods, if the worldview seeing the gods as subject to the laws prevails. Both tendencies were noticed in ancient Chinese social theory and religion. Chinese religion was, with the emergence of the natural sciences, markedly depersonalized and ritualized in a way that secured harmony among the people, but did not promote the worship of deities. The attraction of Buddhism, introduced in the first century ad from India, clearly shows that the dominant worldview in China basically had nothing to offer that could come to meet the desire of many people for a god the father or god the mother. The idea of the regularity of nature may therefore have also complied with political interests in the Warring States period and later. The basic conditions for the emergence of medicine in China were thus fulfilled.

This chapter provides detailed information on the variety of therapeutics available over the years. The influence of the Christian worldview had already been encouraging a religious healing for ...
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This chapter provides detailed information on the variety of therapeutics available over the years. The influence of the Christian worldview had already been encouraging a religious healing for centuries. The Scholastics made an attempt to unite Christian teachings and ancient philosophy. The anatomists conducted autopsies but with their view into the corpse, they sought the confirmation of the meager knowledge taken by Mondino from an anatomically insignificant text of Galen's and from his own experience. The situation in the Greek cultural domain led to the development of the polis democracy. The ideal structure of the societal organism offered insights into the structure of the body. The initial situation in China was similar. From the sociopolitical upheavals and social philosophies of the fourth to second centuries bc, two opposing traditions emerged, each with its own view of the body. The two basic directions of thought were clear and understandable.Less

The Variety of Therapeutics

Paul U. Unschuld

Published in print: 2009-09-08

This chapter provides detailed information on the variety of therapeutics available over the years. The influence of the Christian worldview had already been encouraging a religious healing for centuries. The Scholastics made an attempt to unite Christian teachings and ancient philosophy. The anatomists conducted autopsies but with their view into the corpse, they sought the confirmation of the meager knowledge taken by Mondino from an anatomically insignificant text of Galen's and from his own experience. The situation in the Greek cultural domain led to the development of the polis democracy. The ideal structure of the societal organism offered insights into the structure of the body. The initial situation in China was similar. From the sociopolitical upheavals and social philosophies of the fourth to second centuries bc, two opposing traditions emerged, each with its own view of the body. The two basic directions of thought were clear and understandable.

Chapter 6 notes that the overview of the Ostroms’ work in the light of some of its pivotal concepts (such as polycentricity, institutional diversity, IAD framework, institutional resilience, ...
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Chapter 6 notes that the overview of the Ostroms’ work in the light of some of its pivotal concepts (such as polycentricity, institutional diversity, IAD framework, institutional resilience, institutional design) reveals two things. The first is that this work sets up the stage for a reconstruction of our very approach to institutional theory by challenging us to rethink assumptions, methods and entire theoretical perspectives. The second is that a certain philosophical profile, unmistakably associable to the pragmatist intellectual tradition, seems to be latent in it, both as an assumption and an implication. The chapter is a first attempt so far to probe and elaborate the link between a foundational pragmatist perspective and Ostromian institutionalism.Less

Institutionalism and Pragmatism

Paul Dragos Aligica

Published in print: 2013-11-21

Chapter 6 notes that the overview of the Ostroms’ work in the light of some of its pivotal concepts (such as polycentricity, institutional diversity, IAD framework, institutional resilience, institutional design) reveals two things. The first is that this work sets up the stage for a reconstruction of our very approach to institutional theory by challenging us to rethink assumptions, methods and entire theoretical perspectives. The second is that a certain philosophical profile, unmistakably associable to the pragmatist intellectual tradition, seems to be latent in it, both as an assumption and an implication. The chapter is a first attempt so far to probe and elaborate the link between a foundational pragmatist perspective and Ostromian institutionalism.

This chapter first looks into Mills' relationship with pragmatism. It begins with a discussion of his first published essays on language and culture, which were written while he was still a graduate ...
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This chapter first looks into Mills' relationship with pragmatism. It begins with a discussion of his first published essays on language and culture, which were written while he was still a graduate student. These essays on the sociology of knowledge not only demonstrate the influence of pragmatism on his thinking but also his precocious audacity, which consists chiefly in his ambition to take on existing systematic knowledge of the social world, and both the theoretical underpinnings and the methodologies of the social sciences. The chapter then turn to Mills' first sustained intellectual work, his dissertation, A Sociological Account of Pragmatism, which was published in 1966 under the title Sociology and Pragmatism. What Mills achieves here is not only an examination of pragmatism from the perspective of a sociology of knowledge by showing the degree to which the institutions of “higher learning in America” influenced it as a philosophy but also an interrogation of the separation of sociology from philosophy.Less

Mills’s Sociology and Pragmatism

Stanley Aronowitz

Published in print: 2014-04-08

This chapter first looks into Mills' relationship with pragmatism. It begins with a discussion of his first published essays on language and culture, which were written while he was still a graduate student. These essays on the sociology of knowledge not only demonstrate the influence of pragmatism on his thinking but also his precocious audacity, which consists chiefly in his ambition to take on existing systematic knowledge of the social world, and both the theoretical underpinnings and the methodologies of the social sciences. The chapter then turn to Mills' first sustained intellectual work, his dissertation, A Sociological Account of Pragmatism, which was published in 1966 under the title Sociology and Pragmatism. What Mills achieves here is not only an examination of pragmatism from the perspective of a sociology of knowledge by showing the degree to which the institutions of “higher learning in America” influenced it as a philosophy but also an interrogation of the separation of sociology from philosophy.

This chapter presents a dialogue with Axel Honneth, professor of philosophy at the Frankfurt School and director of the Institute for Social Research, regarding the status of Critical Theory as a ...
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This chapter presents a dialogue with Axel Honneth, professor of philosophy at the Frankfurt School and director of the Institute for Social Research, regarding the status of Critical Theory as a tradition of thought. Honneth attempts to develop a normative foundation for a theory of society, based on his belief that early Critical Theory possessed a flawed sociology. He agrees with many of Habermas' reformulations of Critical Theory except the Habermasian pragmatics of language, opting instead for a theory of recognition. Honneth's discussion further includes the relationship of his theories with French social philosophy, the question of instrumental reason, the reformulation of the Habermasian theory of the public, and his idea of developing a tradition of social philosophy concerned with distinguishing social pathologies.Less

The Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School and the Theory of Recognition : Dialogue with Olivier Voirol

Axel Honneth

Published in print: 2011-03-08

This chapter presents a dialogue with Axel Honneth, professor of philosophy at the Frankfurt School and director of the Institute for Social Research, regarding the status of Critical Theory as a tradition of thought. Honneth attempts to develop a normative foundation for a theory of society, based on his belief that early Critical Theory possessed a flawed sociology. He agrees with many of Habermas' reformulations of Critical Theory except the Habermasian pragmatics of language, opting instead for a theory of recognition. Honneth's discussion further includes the relationship of his theories with French social philosophy, the question of instrumental reason, the reformulation of the Habermasian theory of the public, and his idea of developing a tradition of social philosophy concerned with distinguishing social pathologies.

This chapter proposes a counter-history of a seminal debate in the transition from structuralism to post-structuralism. It calls into question the widespread assumption that Derrida rejects ...
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This chapter proposes a counter-history of a seminal debate in the transition from structuralism to post-structuralism. It calls into question the widespread assumption that Derrida rejects Foucault’s structuralist stranglehold by demonstrating that the meaning of a text always remains open. Through a meticulous examination of their respective historical paradigms, methodological orientations and hermeneutic parameters, it argues that Derrida’s critique of his former professor is, at the level of theoretical practice, a call to return to order. The ultimate conclusion is that the Foucault-Derrida debate has much less to do with Descartes’ text per se, than with the relationship between the traditional tasks of philosophy and the meta-theoretical reconfiguration of philosophic practice via the methods of the social sciences.Less

The Right of Philosophy and the Facts of History: Foucault, Derrida, Descartes

Gabriel Rockhill

Published in print: 2016-07-01

This chapter proposes a counter-history of a seminal debate in the transition from structuralism to post-structuralism. It calls into question the widespread assumption that Derrida rejects Foucault’s structuralist stranglehold by demonstrating that the meaning of a text always remains open. Through a meticulous examination of their respective historical paradigms, methodological orientations and hermeneutic parameters, it argues that Derrida’s critique of his former professor is, at the level of theoretical practice, a call to return to order. The ultimate conclusion is that the Foucault-Derrida debate has much less to do with Descartes’ text per se, than with the relationship between the traditional tasks of philosophy and the meta-theoretical reconfiguration of philosophic practice via the methods of the social sciences.